Last but not least: The copy-paste sin
The Vatican recently appointed 22 cardinals. Apparently, that’s a few too many for the PR department. That’s because some of the biographies included with the press release were copied from Wikipedia—without citing the source.
According to Spiegel.de, the papal copy-paste scandal was uncovered by an Italian blogger. He had noticed that some of the cardinals had been introduced as "Catholic priests" in the biographies - probably in case anyone didn't realize that the Pope is Catholic. Furthermore, in its assessment of the newly appointed Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, the Vatican press office comes to the conclusion that the former archbishop has a strong tendency towards conservatism, especially when it comes to abortion and homosexuality ...
Embarrassing, embarrassing. But let's cut the papal PR people some slack. After all, the Vatican Secret Archives contain 180,000 manuscripts, 1.6 million books and 85 kilometers of files. It's a lot more convenient to just consult Wikipedia.
When confronted with the accusation of a copy-paste sin, a Vatican spokesperson said that the biographies were only intended as handouts for the Vatican press offices. He and his team had been informed too late about the list of cardinals. On the Website of the Vatican of course, biographies written by the company itself have been published in the meantime.
